ER Clip

Here is a cool clip from ER. It shows how the postmodern "gospel" lets people down .



http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=nNuSBGa1mLM

John Piper on the Supremacy of Christ

Legalized killing

Yesterday there was a piece of horrible history that was acknowledged, legalized murder. Attached is a graphic video of what really happens. May God have mercy on us as a nation. Father please forgive us for being numb to this genocide that is happening around us. Help us battle this evil until it is no more.

I-A-4-video.html

Good thoughts on prayer by John MacArthur

Pray without ceasing

(By John MacArthur) 

What does it mean to pray without ceasing?

Unceasing, incessant prayer is essential to the vitality of your relationship to the Lord and your ability to function in the world. But exactly what does it mean to pray without ceasing?

The first time someone hears about the concept of praying without ceasing it may conjure up the image of Christians walking around with their hands folded, heads bowed, and eyes closed, bumping into things. While certain postures and specific times set aside for prayer have an important bearing on our communication with God, to “pray at all times” obviously does not mean we are to pray in formal or noticeable ways every waking moment. And it does not mean you’re supposed to devote yourself to reciting ritualistic patterns and forms of prayer.

To “pray without ceasing” refers to recurring prayer, not nonstop talking. Prayer is to be a way of life — you’re to be continually in an attitude of prayer. It is living in continual God-consciousness, where everything you see and experience becomes a kind of prayer, lived in deep awareness of and surrender to Him. It should be instant and intimate communication — not unlike that which we enjoy with our best friend.

To “pray without ceasing” means when you are tempted, you hold the temptation before God and ask for His help. When you experience something good and beautiful, you immediately thank the Lord for it. When you see evil around you, you ask God to make it right and to use you toward that end, if that is His will. When you meet someone who does not know Christ, you pray for God to draw that person to Himself and to use you to be a faithful witness. When you encounter trouble, you turn to God as your Deliverer.

Thus life becomes a continually ascending prayer: all life’s thoughts, deeds, and circumstances become an opportunity to commune with your Heavenly Father. In that way you constantly set your mind “on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2).

(Today’s post is adapted from John’s book Alone With God [Victor, 1995], pp. 15-17)

Another great song from Sovereign Grace

Before the Throne of God Above

Item # M4060-06-51

Music by Vikki Cook 
Original lyrics by Charitie Less Bancroft
As recorded on Upward


Listen to song sample


Lyrics

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea
A great High Priest whose name is love
Who ever lives and pleads for me
My name is graven on His hands
My name is written on His heart
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Behold Him there! The risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless, Righteousness
The Great unchangeable I AM
The King of Glory and of Grace
One with Himself I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my Savior and my God
With Christ my Savior and my God


© 1997 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP).

Patience

Just got done reading a chapter on patience in Future Grace by John Piper. In this instant gratification society we Christians now live in I struggle with waiting. I want it now, I don't want to wait for something. In this chapter of this book there is a great reminder to wait on the Lord. There is a great example of patience taken from another book called Passion by Karl Olsson. It tells a story about a girl named Marie Durant who lived as a French Protestant in a group called the Huguenots. She was brought before the authorities, charged with heresy. She was 14 years old. She was bright, attractive, and marriageable. She was asked to deny her faith. Because of her refusal she was put in a tower by the sea with 30 other women. For 38 years she was locked up continuing to hang on to her faith. They had scratched into the wall of the tower a single word, "Resistez" which translates Resist!

I cannot imagine what that was like. I would have a tough time with 38 minutes or 38 hours or 38 days. Dear God give me a perseverance.

I'll add to this post later when I get more time.

Another great hymn

Jesus I am resting resting

by Pigott/Hampton

Jesus, I am resting, resting
In the joy of what thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of thy loving heart.
Thou hast bid me gaze upon thee,
As thy beauty fills my soul,
For by thy transforming power,
Thou hast made me whole.

Jesus, I am resting, resting
In the joy of what thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of thy loving heart.

O how great thy lovingkindness,
Vaster, broader than the sea!
O how marvelous thy goodness
Lavished all on me!
Yes, I rest in thee, Beloved,
Know what wealth of grace is thine,
Know thy certainty of promise
And have made it mine.

Simply trusting thee, Lord Jesus,
I behold thee as thou art,
And thy love, so pure, so changeless,
Satisfies my heart;
Satisfies its deepest longings,
Meets, supplies its every need,
Compasseth me round with blessings:
Thine is love indeed.

Ever lift thy face upon me
As I work and wait for thee;
Resting 'neath thy smile, Lord Jesus,
Earth's dark shadows flee.
Brightness of my Father's glory,
Sunshine of my Father's face,
Keep me ever trusting, resting,
Fill me with thy grace.

Witnessing

Went out witnessing at the Mall of America last night. I struggle with fear every time we've done this. Its very encouraging though going out with a group. I'm hopeful that it will get easier as time goes on. I mean it should be a joy each time knowing that we have the greatest news in the world to share, but I think I let fear of rejection get in the way. Its interesting though when you go out with a purpose that you feel compelled to share. For the first 45 minutes I really didn't talk to anybody other than a guy selling hats and that was all he wanted to talk about and a girl selling tickets to win a Ferrari we never got past the Ferrari. When we went to the food court to meet up with the others I felt led to to talk to 2 young guys sitting at a table near us. They were nice guys and let me sit down and share with them. I gave them each a Gospel tract as well as some books and a New Testament. Please pray for August and Aquino.

More Wed. musings

I just finished Ryles book on Regeneration. I really enjoyed it. I really think that there are many people who call themselves christian that are not. Its the difference between being a professing christian and being a possessing Christian. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fruit inspector, but if someone is truly born-again there should be evidence of that in their life. Know this, there is no regeneration apart from being given the Holy Spirit and when He comes and lives in us are whole lives will change. We will start seeing sin for the ugliness it is. The things we used to love we now hate and the things we used to hate we now love. As Ryle puts it "we need a new nature". It all starts with repentance and faith, apart from that its all self effort and it cannot save you.

I think there also is a delusion in America especially about what it means to be born-again. It says in Scripture "always be ready to give an answer to those who ask about the hope that lies within you". Anybody asking lately? Probably not because we try so hard to show them that we are just like them. We should look more like "strangers and aliens in a foreign land" instead of trying to show Bob and Betty down the street how cool we are and how cool Jesus is.

Wednesday's thought

Here are the lyrics to one of my favorite modern hymns

How Deep The Father’s Love For Us

Words and Music by Stuart Townend
©1995 Kingsway's Thankyou Music

How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He would give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away 
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the Man upon a cross
My guilt upon His shoulders
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no powr's, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

10 Resolutions for Mental Health by John Piper

The following post comes from my pastor John Piper, it was originally posted at DesiringGod on New Year's Day I thought it was really good so I thought I'd share it on my Blog. Enjoy: 

On October 22, 1976, Clyde Kilby, who is now with Christ in Heaven, gave an unforgettable lecture. I went to hear him that night because I loved him. He had been one of my professors in English Literature at Wheaton College. He opened my eyes to more of life than I knew could be seen. O, what eyes he had! He was like his hero, C. S. Lewis, in this regard. When he spoke of the tree he saw on the way to class this morning, you wondered why you had been so blind all your life. Since those days in classes with Clyde Kilby, Psalm 19:1 has been central to my life: “The sky is telling the glory of God.”

That night Dr. Kilby had a pastoral heart and a poet’s eye. He pled with us to stop seeking mental health in the mirror of self-analysis, but instead to drink in the remedies of God in nature. He was not naïve. He knew of sin. He knew of the necessity of redemption in Christ. But he would have said that Christ purchased new eyes for us as well as new hearts. His plea was that we stop being unamazed by the strange glory of ordinary things. He ended that lecture in 1976 with a list of resolutions. As a tribute to my teacher and a blessing to your soul, I offer them for your joy.

1. At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.

2. Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death when he said: "There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing."

3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

4. I shall not turn my life into a thin, straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.

5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

6. I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their "divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic" existence.

7. I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the "child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder."

8. I shall follow Darwin's advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, "fulfill the moment as the moment." I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

10. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect who calls himself Alpha and Omega.